


oh my my my (it's a big big big world out there)

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU after Season 5, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 04:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20370850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: After returning from space, Melinda's priorities have shifted.





	oh my my my (it's a big big big world out there)

It’s funny, how your priorities will change when you’ve been to the future.

Or maybe not funny. Maybe sad is the word she’s look for? Melinda honestly doesn’t know. What she  _ does _ know is that she doesn’t want her life to be the way it’s been. She’s given her all to S.H.I.E.L.D., and now she’s given it her best friend, too.

Maybe it’s not smart to make a decision like this when she’s grieving Phil’s loss, but Melinda doesn’t care. She turns in her resignation letter to Mack and walks off the base with nothing more than a duffel bag full of clothes, a wad of cash, and an ICER on her hip.

She thought she’d be sadder, but it doesn’t feel like leaving a home the way she expected it to. The only one she really regrets leaving is Daisy, but Daisy had all but shoved her out the door. They’ll be in touch - Daisy’s the only one who has the number to the burner phone shoved into the bottom of her duffel - and they both know leaving is the best thing for her. Everything else S.H.I.E.L.D. had been to her is gone.

She spends the first month of her unofficial retirement on a treasure hunt. She would call it a quest, but Melinda isn’t the kind for theatrics. She’s not an adventurer, so even treasure hunt feels too big for what she’s doing. All she wants is to come home, but home is hard to find in the best of circumstances. Needless to say, she’s not in the best of circumstances. The only thing she can say for herself is that she hasn’t doubted her choice to leave, not even once. 

The world is bigger than she remembered. Maybe it just feels that way because she’s been to all four corners of it and still hasn’t found what she’s looking for. Maybe it’s because she’s learned to appreciate all the little things now that she’s seen how they could be destroyed. Either way, it’s different, and Mel is learning how to re-love the world she almost lost. She finds it’s easiest to love the birds. There’s an innocence to them, and they remind her of… well, they remind her of home.

Her search ends in front of an unassuming brick building in an unassuming neighborhood in an unassuming town. She’s in the middle of Kansas, which is also the most unassuming state she can think of. Nothing about the place is memorable. Mel’s certain if she had passed through she would’ve never remembered being there at all. But she’s hoping to do more than just pass through, if this is the place she thinks it is.

The apartment is on the second floor, in the back of the building. Tactically, it’s the best place in the neighborhood. She shouldn’t have expected anything less. 

It’s strange to be standing in front of the door at last. This is the end of her treasure hunt -  _ this _ is the end goal. This stupid big blue door with scuffed paint and more locks than any one residence needs - this is it. There’s no knocker and no doorbell, which means she has to use her fist to beat down the door to her future.

For a suffocating sixty seconds, there’s no answer. Mel’s convinced herself they’re not here and is about to turn away when the door flies open so fast she’s not sure how it’s still on its hinges.

“Holy shit.”

That about sums up her thoughts, too.

“Can I come in?”

Hunter steps back, leaving the door wide open for her. Mel doesn’t hesitate to cross the threshold. Maybe she would’ve, if she hadn’t seen the future. Maybe she would’ve, if she hadn’t been so terrifyingly certain this was where she belonged.

“Bob!”

A head of blonde hair tied up in a messy bun pokes around the corner, and then -

“Holy shit.”

Still her thoughts, too.

“What are you doing here, Melinda?” She’s not entirely sure who asks the question, only that she’s still not prepared to answer it. Explaining everything she’s been through is too difficult, even though Hunter knows part of the story and therefore Bobbi probably does, too. She takes a deep breath, swallows all her half-formed apologies, and just shakes her head.

To her surprise, they accept it.

“I left S.H.I.E.L.D.” There’s a finality to saying it - no going back now. She still doesn’t want to go back, she doesn’t even dream of going back.

She dreams of them. Ever since she got back from space, every night she’s dreamed of them. Every fucking night she’s waited, and wanted, and hoped, and now they’re  _ here,  _ and holy shit, she can’t breathe right.

“I -”

For the second time in her life, Melinda May breaks. The tears pour out unbidden. She grieves for everything she’s lost and everything she still hopes to find. She cries for the woman she could have been, and the woman she will be, and every woman between that, too. She cries in happiness, she cries in sorrow.

She cries in her lovers’ arms.

Somehow, they still don’t ask. Somehow, they still know to give her space, and it hits her all over again how good they are for her - how much she had needed them, even if she’d never let herself use those words. The last two and a half years without them just haven’t been the same. She hadn’t been the same.

Bobbi presses a cup of tea into her hands and they sit at the kitchen table and it is so, so right. A small part of her had wondered what would happen if she came back and things weren’t the same, but it’s silent now. There’s no way for her to think she belongs anywhere other than right where she is. 

She has found her home.

Somehow, in an impossibly big world (and she will tell them soon how this universe is so big and so terrifying and somehow still so  _ beautiful _ ) she has found her home. It has a blue door and blonde hair and hazel eyes, and it’s even more beautiful than the world outside its doors.

It’s a miracle, really.

And doesn’t she deserve at least one miracle in this life?

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://bobbimorseisbisexual.tumblr.com)!


End file.
